15 October, Dubrovnik, Croatia

This is a big page, so apologies if it takes forever to load... there are lots of photos... blame the new camera, and Sinead, who shares some photo credits on this one...

My last night in Hvar (Friday the 13th as it happens) I went back to the restaurant where Teo worked to have dinner again, since it was the best place I’d found, and also had the advantages of good service and a good view. I got there around 6pm, toting my laptop along, intending to catch up on writing the journal and also to do some picture editing, since I’ve been lax about both lately. I went up the stairs to the terrace, with Teo there again, and recognizing me, being even friendlier than before. As I was sitting down, there was a large table of people nearby, and one of them sat his camera down on a water glass, to get a picture of the whole group. As has been my custom when I see this kind of thing, I offered to take their photo. Instantly I was in the same position as the guy who drove the vans in Slovenia, faced with a crowd and each person with a camera wanting their own shot. It was really only three, but I still laughed, feeling sorry for the driver there again.

In any case, I took the photos, and they were English speakers and invited me to sit down with them, so I did, being introduced to everyone at once, in completely random order around the table, I got almost no names, and consequently spent the next two days sorting them out. I did get Kevin, the guy who was sitting next to me and who was from Connecticut, and got a really great name which belonged to the very beautiful woman sitting across from me, which promptly got lost again as soon as various people began asking me questions and telling me about themselves… turns out that name was Sinead.



Anyway, I charged on with dinner, taking forever to order as I was catching up with the conversation, but Teo was kind, of course, and patient. I spent the next couple hours talking and drinking, suddenly back in the same sort of really great large social group that was so good to have in Slovenia. It turned out that only a few of them had known one another for more than a day or so, and they were almost all staying at the hostel. Also that they were almost all leaving on the ferry with me the next morning, for Dubrovnik.

It was a really great dinner, with good food, excellent service from Teo and good conversation. In addition to Kevin and Sinead, I was sitting next to Caroline, who was the one person headed in the opposite direction from the rest of us, having spent a month and a half in Dubrovnik, trying to get her start as a travel writer. I’d link to her, but she’s working for a new web based travel guide that won’t be up for a few months. I’ll link to her once it gets up, and we’ll see if she’s any good (just kidding Caroline!). I also was cattycornered from Joni, a blonde woman from Australia,


(Joni from Australia hitting a pose, and Alex, in the background looking dubious about something... )

and got to talk to Chris, from Chicago a bit as well. At the end, Teo brought out glasses of grappa for the men and the traditional strong dessert wine served to women, which brought some complaints of sexism from them until they actually smelled the grappa, at which point they were perfectly happy. Amazingly, being faced with it the second time, it went down a bit smoother and I noticed that I finished mine before anyone else did. Teo also joined us for a drink, as did Yuri, the chef, who came up and was cheered and hoorayed on his appearance. After the wine was gone, we settled up the bill and as we were headed out, Teo and I stopped and exchanged email addresses as well, and somehow when I stepped out the door and looked, the entire crowd had disappeared. It wasn’t a big deal, as I knew I’d be seeing most of them on the ferry in the morning, but I didn’t get to say goodbye to Caroline, which was a drag. We have one another’s emails anyway, so its not like she is gone forever.

I made the mistake of not leaving well enough alone, and went out to a couple of the bars after dinner (it was only 10.30, which is early, really) and after having a couple drinks realized I’d had one too many. I headed home, packed my bag and got to bed around 1am, but then woke up around 5:30 and could not go back to sleep. After an hour and a half of tossing and turning, trying desperately to get one little bit more stretch of sleep, I got up at 7 and showered, which ended up making me have to rush to catch the bus to the harbor (car ferries have to dock at a town across the island called Stari Grad, rather than in the smaller port in Hvar town, in case you forgot) and not have time to stop and get anything to eat. A drag since the bus got us there just in time to catch the ferry, and that meant the entire six hour ride without food, potentially (or worse, eating in the ferry restaurant).

The bus took us on a winding ride along the Western coast of the island with some great views before making a hard bend left and going across the center, to the north east side. That included a 2km or so tunnel through the heart of one of the mountains which spit us out right at the harbor, which is just outside the town. We boarded the ferry, a boat called the Marco Polo, which incidentally, is the name I christened my computer with when I bought it, as it was going to be doing a lot of traveling. In case you were curious, my other computers have all been named after scientists, since they seem to be smarter than me. Marco Polo was supposedly from Korcula, which I skipped when Paige and her sister said it was exactly the same as Hvar, but smaller. I’m very happy that I did, as if I’d gone, I most likely wouldn’t have become friends with Sinead, Alex and the rest of the crowd I met that last night on Hvar.


(Joni and Sinead, early in the morning on the ferry... )

The ride was good, but pretty uneventful. It was a good brush up on all the names I’d missed the night before though, and a chance to meet some of the guys from the other end of the table who I hadn’t been able to talk with at all. We sat on the deck most of the time, watching the stunning scenery go by (mostly with the mainland or Korcula Island on our left as we headed south, and other islands coming and going on our right, all of them with rocky coastlines rising into tall peaks). Kevin and I taught Dave (from Vancouver) and Sinead (from Dublin, and I have say, I can’t imagine anyone more opposite from Liam, the Irishman I roomed with in Slovenia) to play Euchre. It was the first time I’ve played in many, many years, but it was a good refresher and good fun.


(Dave, Chris and Sinead, in her bathrobe, with just a bit of Kevin in the lower left corner.)

I then helped Sinead as she and Dave were paired up against the shark brothers, Kevin and Chris (Kevin, I later learned, placed 8th in the World Poker tournament one year, and Chris apparently plays a fair game of cards as well), abandoning her as we pulled into the port at Korcula Island, to investigate the photo opportunities. There weren’t that many, really, and I was happy I’d stayed on Hvar instead of going there…

After we left port again, Kevin had a chess set and played a couple games with Dave and Chris, and during one, I sat next to Joni who didn’t want to play, but was very intrigued watching, and who might potentially be a chess shark. It would be fun to sit her down for  game if the opportunity arises, just to see what happens. We all spent that second half of the trip on deck, watching chess, talking, a bunch of people listening to their ipods (we tried to plug Sinead’s into my computer to listen to Billy Connelly but the volume just wasn’t good enough to compete with the wind and the ship) and watching the coast go by. One of Sinead’s flip flops broke, and I took up the challenge to try to fix it. They were all skeptical at first, but after letting her choose the thread color from my sewing kit (hot pink) I delved in. My first strategy didn’t work out, as the needle didn’t want to go through the sole of the shoe, but the second strategy worked out better than I expected and even today, after carrying her 2 ton backpack (only a slight exaggeration) up Dubrovnik’s hills and walking up and own the steps all night, it still seems to be holding up. I still think she is going to have to pick up a new pair in the next day or so, but she’s in denial. (Update, as I am touching this up a week or so later on the ferry… last time I saw Sinead, she was still wearing the sandals constantly, and the repair job was still holding up. I hope she lets me know when they give up the ghost.)

I had planned on getting a place of my own, with Dave, Chris, Joni, Kevin, and the guys I didn’t really know (Ben and Owen) staying at the hostel and Alex (from Melbourne, Australia)



and Sinead planning on finding a private place. I called a hotel I was interested in (they rented bikes and kayaks according to the website) but they were closed for the season (of course), so pretty randomly I ended up talking to all the old women at the port with Alex and Sinead, seeing if we could find a place for three. I was more aggressive bargaining this time around, playing the ugly American since I had Alex and Sinead to be the good cops, to the extent that I seemed to have pissed off one old woman there who continued yell at me even after fifteen minutes, when Sinead had talked to her a bit more. In the end we found a young guy who had a house on the water which he showed us on the map and appeared to be about half way between the port and the old town, and followed him to look at it. After walking about five minutes though, he took us through a door to a really nice little house, which wasn’t at all where he said it was. It sat on one of the main streets, but did have a good view of the water and a good terrace, but it was very annoying that he completely lied about where it was. Alex wasn’t keen on being right on the street like that, and so for that, and on principle because he was a lying bastard, we left without even looking at the rest of the house, walking towards the old town with the idea that we’d just look for signs and track something down.

We walked for quite a while, with Sinead seemingly ready to collapse under the weight of the biggest backpack of the three of us, and a not particularly well made one to boot, so that it had to be incredibly hard to carry. We stopped a couple places and I tried calling, and asking about rooms, but nothing worked out, until finally we stopped at a travel agency which was just above the old town. There was an old man outside who asked if we needed accommodation (I’m not sure how as it ended up he didn’t speak any English, really… now that I think about it, I guess it was all hand signs or Croatian words that I knew.) so I talked to him (tried) while Alex and Sinead went inside. They ended up finding a place that they felt was too expensive (things got pricier and smaller as we got closer to old town, of course… all the prices were nothing compared to what I’ve been paying for hotels in Croatia though) so we decided to take a walk with the old man and see what he had.


(the steps from our place to the old town... much like Hvar, but bigger, which meant lots of hills... )

He lead us just down the steps through a gate, down another set of steps, across a courtyard beside a garden, up some steps, around a corner, and knocked on a door where a young guy came out and started talking to us in perfect English. At first I thought the old man was shilling for the guy who had rooms and apartments to rent, but it turns out that it really was just one room in the man’s apartment (and his wife’s as well) and that the younger guy just helped out translating to English. So… we ended up looking at a largish bedroom in the apartment of this older couple. There were two beds, one big and one small, a great balcony and not much else… a bath that was shared with the couple, and another room beside us that was for rent, but was empty. For this they asked for 300 kuna a night. I have to admit I wasn’t very keen on staying with the old couple, or for that matter, staying with Alex and Sinead, who I barely knew, in one room, sharing a bath with them and two others, but the fact of the matter was, 250 (which Sinead talked them down to) divided by 3 is less than 250 divided by two, and I think 125 was more than either Alex or Sinead was ready to pay. In the end I figured, what the hell… Alex and Sinead both seemed like people I could live with for a couple days, and it was so cheap, even if it didn’t work out I could just pay my share and go get somewhere by myself. We agreed all around, put down our bags, and I headed out to the balcony first thing to enjoy the view and chill out for a few minutes.


(a great view except for those darn power lines!)

And that is how I ended up in Dubrovnik staying in one bedroom of a Croatian couple’s three bedroom apartment with an Australian and a woman who talks Irish but doesn’t look it.


(on our balcony)



Throughout the entire trip through Croatia, Dubrovnik was the place that was the must-see. The guide books and the locals all talked about it as if it were magical. Obviously after that build up, there is going to be disappointment, but I was a little shocked by just how much… Yes, it was beautiful, but really the orange tiled roofs and white marble streets were the same as we’d seen in Split and Hvar and even in Korcula from the ferry. A bit nicer perhaps, but pretty similar. The thing that kills Dubrovnik is that it is so built up as a fantastic spot, you can’t do anything for the tourists. From our little apartment balcony, we had a view into one of the harbors, and on Saturday there were three cruise ships there.



Walking around that day was pretty much the epitome of what I’d been trying to avoid for the last three months. We couldn’t move for the cameras and rude Americans and rude Germans and tour groups of Asians and tourists of all stripes. Later on, running into Caroline again, she told us that at times during the summer there would sometimes be as many as 14 cruise ships in that harbor… I can’t even imagine what it would be like. We did end up finding some good places and having fun, but not because of the old town… If you’re thinking about going there, DO NOT go anywhere near high season… you won’t be able to see anything or even move…



The second afternoon there, Alex, Sinead and I decided to try to get to a beach of swimming hole of some sort. Caroline had given us a map with some secret destinations on it, one of which was a good rocky outcrop outside the city walls from which to swim. On the way there, we ran into Joni, and she joined us, and the four of us spent a really great afternoon lounging on the rocks, basking in the sun, and jumping into the water for cooling off swims.



Each night, we all ended up at the same place.. a little tiny club just off the main street called Fresh, which served drinks, and more importantly, made really great wraps. Kevin discovered this on the first night, and ended up sharing his with nearly everyone wanting a bite to taste it. Alex, Sinead and I ate dinner there both of the next two nights, just because it was very cheap (25 kuna for a wrap) and incredibly good. The drinks weren’t quite as cheap, but since we were getting there between seven and eight for happy hour, the first couple were half price, so that helped.

The last full day there, Alex and Sinead and I were once again in the mood for the water, but we also needed to check on ferry and bus information, and car rentals, so we packed our backpacks (small ones, not the big ones!) and walked back towards the harbor, from which we had come two days before. It was much shorter and easier going downhill and without our full packs, and after we all had the information we needed, we walked towards an area called Lapad, which is where a lot of the hotels are situated. We found a really great little restaurant overlooking the water that made us fantastic sandwiches for cheap, then went down to the sea. The weather had turned, and so it wasn’t nearly as hot that day… which meant the water felt very cold… Sinead and I got in, but didn’t stay for long. I ended up getting in a second time, swimming around a bit, having rocks thrown at me by the Irish hellion, then proceeded to rescue her shoe (not the one I fixed… the other) from floating away without even a sincere word of thanks from her. Meanwhile, she commandeered my camera and tried to wear it out taking pictures of her toes, the rocks, the fish swimming around her legs, and anything else that was bright and shiny and attracted her attention.



All in all, it was another great day, even if the temperature wasn’t quite what we would have wished for.



After swimming, we went back, showered and went to the internet shop where Sinead finally resolved her plans (she had been agonizing over what to do since I met her, trying to decide where she should go), deciding to fly to London from Split, work for a few weeks, then head to Australia to work there for the summer. Alex too was flying to London, for a bit longer, probably, and by now both of them are there, enjoying the English fall and trying to remember what the sun looks like. I’m putting up lots of pictures on this page, just so they can have some help remembering…


(Sinead working hard on finishing the Nutella... one of those photos you can't NOT put up for people to see... )


(despite my disapointment, there were some good aspects to the city... this doorway being one of them.. )

The last day there wasn’t too much to tell. We got up and walked around the old city walls, with Alex and Sinead walking off a hangover as well (I’d stopped drinking early the night before, along with Chris, but everyone else more than made up for us). We packed up our stuff, cleared out of the apartment, and Alex and Sinead took our backpacks to a café while I went to get the rental car. After the typical BS dealing with that, we drove up the coast, seeing the view we’d gotten from the ferry four days before from the opposite side. It was a good drive, but also a little sad, knowing our little trio was going to be split up… The two of them are in London now, presumably working, and saving up money to go to Australia for the summer there... lucky buggers...

Sarajevo is the next stop... till then, take care.

Stephen

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